You Won't Like Us When We're Angry

I'm sorry, what was that Mr. Zito? You beat us yesterday? And Barry Bonds is still too much of a pansy to play a game at Wrigley? How about this: You keep pretending that Bonds has abnormally sore knees and that you are good enough to qualify as a team, and we'll just use our backup catcher to destroy you 12-1. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Oh yeah, and we won't hit a single home run during this massacre. Those are overrated anyways.

What Happened While I Was Away...

In case you've noticed, and the list of people that would is probably very short and only includes the name Jason, I haven't written anything in 5 days. I'd love to be able to come up with an impressive excuse, something like 'I was feeding starving children in Zimbabwe', but the rather less impressive truth is that I started a summer job and can hardly stay awake long enough to write anything. My apologies.

So here's a list of things I missed while I was napping:

• Derrek Lee was handed a 5-game suspension. Personally, this is slightly lower than I thought considering the 10-game one Barrett got last year. On the other hand, directly charging the mound is only 3 games, and Young did approach Lee on the basepath for some reason. Next time he'll stay on the mound if he knows what's good for him. Lee is of course appealing the decision, which should keep him around long enough to hit another grand slam off the Sox.
• A large number of people have been doing a Google search for the phrase Zambrano Belt. Well the truth came out shortly after the fight, his belt was off because he was in the middle of changing in the clubhouse when the fight started, not because he wanted to whip somebody. Sometimes the truth is funnier than fiction.
  
• Lee has not yet apologized for swing at Young's pretty face, which I find interesting. Normally people apologize profusely after a fight to show remorse and try to reduce the coming suspension, but Lee is doing no such thing. Young must have said something along the lines of "Next time I'll get your eye, natch."
• The Cubs lost the series to the Padres, unsurprisingly, and have gone 1-4 ever since Lee flipped out.
• Sammy Sosa took a short break from amassing strikeouts and hit number 600 off of Marquis on Wednesday. There was a big sign in the outfield showing his home run tally, and it had a star in front of the number 600. Looked an awful lot like an asterisk at first glance.
• I won't lie to you, I used to like Sammy Sosa. That feeling faded right around 2000. When you walk out on the team, I will walk out on.....your mom. And then I'll take her out to a nice seafood dinner, and never call her again. Then I will proceed to despise you for the rest of my days.
• We lost the series to the Rangers in boring fashion.
• Barrett got traded, which is probably the biggest news of the week. Some people were unhappy with that, but here's how I see it: A catcher is supposed to catch, and well. Rob Bowen works very well with pitchers, doesn't allow many passed balls, and can throw base-runners out. Barrett...well he doesn't do much of anything well, except hit. But Bowen is hitting better than him this year anyways. As long as someone not named Koyie Hill is the main catcher, I'll be happy.

That was a busy 5 days. The Cubs-Sox series on the dirty side of town starts tomorrow, and this time I won't be going to every game. I won't even be able to make it to one game unless you, our intrepid yet sporadic readers, happen to have some extra tickets. rfs and myself would love to hit up Sunday's game, but I can take Saturday too. Heck I'd probably skip work tomorrow if I got tickets. So if anyone out there would like to sit with a couple of struggling bloggers at the game, or if you just need some extra protection from the rabid White Sox fans, hit us up at the e-mail on the right. I promise not to disappoint.

Cesar Izuseless is....Useful

Picture this scenario. I'm relaxing on the couch watching a Cubs game. We're losing by one run, which is not surprising in the least. So naturally, I dozed off. I awoke to the sounds of my mother yelling at me that the Cubs scored and they were winning. When I opened my eyes I found this to be true. But then she told me that Cesar Izturis hit a two-run double to take the lead. This left me no choice but to call her a bold-faced liar and denounce her as my mother. Oops.

That's right, Izturis came through in the clutch to put the Cubs ahead, and they actually won a series. Against an AL team. With a winning record. I know, I find it hard to believe too.

Also, Koyie Hill got another hit, raising his average up to .182, or 6 points higher than Jason Marquis. At least now I will almost feel comfortable about the Cubs using him as a pinch hitter.

But of course, when the Cubs finally win 2 in a row, so do the Brewers. We're still 5.5 games back.

Koyie Hill? Really?

The Cubs just lost in the 13th inning. This doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that Lou used Koyie Hill as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded and the game on the line. I understand that it was a long game and we had already gone through 19 players, but this was a poor decision. We still had Sean Marshall, Ted Lilly, Scott Eyre, Michael Wuertz, and Jason Marquis available to hit. Of those 5, Lilly is batting .115 and Marquis is hitting an impressive .188. You may not think that is impressive, but you will once you consider that Koyie Hill was batting .067 before today. Now it's down to .063. Lou, come on, using your grandma would be a better choice than using Koyie. Marquis would have gotten the job done.